Opinion
By Steve Nicklas,
A decorated soldier I know has led hundreds of missions in danger zones and never lost a single man. In contrast, the U.S. government with unlimited resources cannot protect a single man, Donald Trump.
It’s as easy to understand as the theory of relativity. And the relative truth is the Secret Service is incompetent as our premier protective agency – or something more sinister.
Two close-call attempts to kill Trump are proof enough. However, ineptitude runs deep through the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration, like the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
It’s not just the Secret Service. Look at Homeland Security’s travesty at the southern border, or a politicized FBI slow walking investigations into the assassination attempts on Trump, or the military botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics forgot how to count. The bureau reduced the number of new jobs for the past year by 818,000. And just try to catch a connecting flight at any U.S. airport.
Everything is done through a political lens. With the prevailing goal of keeping the Democrat party in power. And Trump is the highest-priority threat, a black-list target.
Ron DeSantis knows better than anyone. The popular Florida governor has had publicized run-ins with the federal government. So DeSantis often takes matters into his own hands.
DeSantis is determined to launch a state investigation into the latest assassination attempt in West Palm Beach. He doesn’t trust anyone in the U.S. Justice Department, especially the FBI.
“In my judgment, it’s not in the best interest of our state or our nation to have the same federal agencies that are seeking to prosecute Donald Trump leading this investigation,” DeSantis said last week.
DeSantis explained state laws carry heavier consequences for the assassination attempt than does federal law. So he has directed state agencies to investigate and to “provide full transparency to the public.”
“In addition to holding the suspect accountable, the public deserves to know the truth about how this assassination attempt came to be,” DeSantis said.
Ashley Moody shared similar feelings as DeSantis about the FBI leading the Florida investigation. The FBI has mishandled the investigation into the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, hiding information from the public and from Congress.
“It is awkward, to say the least,” said Moody, the prominent Florida attorney general.
Local political columnist/author Ken Timmerman scoffs at the unwillingness of the FBI to investigate overseas connections into the assassination attempts. Even the shooter in Pennsylvania had encrypted foreign bank accounts.
“It’s time to take the wraps off these despicable assassination attempts against the former president,” Timmerman said in his newsletter. “The Feds won’t do it. God bless Gov. Ron DeSantis for stepping up to the plate.”
Conspiracy theories thrive in a vacuum, when the public is denied information. There are no shortages of conspiracy theories about how a struggling roofer knew Trump would be playing golf at the Trump International course – when it was not scheduled.
There are enough questions about Ryan Routh to wear out the question mark. Routh owns a house in Hawaii, has traveled to Ukraine to support the war effort, committed a dirty-laundry list of crimes, and wrote that Iran was “free to assassinate Trump.” Yet he was not on any federal watchlists.
The soldier I know has led special operations and other clandestine endeavors. He was able to protect his men, in places far more dangerous than a prestigious golf course or open fairgrounds. While enemies actively tried to kill them.
In many ways, the U.S. has become a political war zone. And there could be casualties. We pray that one of them will not be Trump, the Republican political frontrunner and former president.
And someone who wants to make our country great again. It is not that way right now.
Steve Nicklas is a financial advisor on Amelia Island and an award-winning columnist. His columns appear in weekly newspapers in Northeast Florida. He has published a book of his favorite columns, “All About Money.” He has also done financial reports for area radio stations. He can be reached at 904-753-0236 at [email protected].
